OCCUPATIONAL FUNCTION

To dictate and maintain the flow of the game; to get the ball to the bigs; to shoot when he can, from wherever he can, which is pretty much wherever he wants; to run an offense formulated around him, in particular his physical strength, his inherent toughness, and his desire to take the big shot (see complicating factor 5, below).

ACHIEVEMENT LEVEL

Fourth in the league in scoring last year (twenty-nine points per game); second in three-pointers made; led his employer, a perennial league doormat, to the playoffs for the second straight year--this time while averaging a league-high thirty-four points postseason.

SYMPTOMS

Never stops training (never), never leaves his hotel room while on the road, starts ridiculously ambitious collections he cannot possibly finish, goes to extreme lengths to keep others from leaving him voice-mail messages, sleeps on a couch even while at home, maintains grudges for self-motivation, formulates grandiose architectural plans, fights dirty with coworkers, crushes his opponents in Xbox without remorse.

COMPLICATING FACTORS

1. Subject was not selected until the second round of the 2001 NBA draft.

2. Despite previously noted achievements, subject was left off the 2006 All-Star team initially and the U. S. national team.

3. Subject plays (excellent) basketball in what is otherwise a football city.

4. Subject works in the shadows of more visible, highly marketable players throughout the league.

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5. Subject ended last season by uncharacteristically choking on two free throws against the Cleveland Cavaliers after playing LeBron James to a standstill for six games.

ENTRY 1: SUBJECT REPORTS A DREAM

SUBJECT: Lately I've been dreaming I'm playing basketball on a desert island.

OBSERVER: Like in the middle of the ocean? With palm trees?

SUBJECT: Yeah, playing full court, a real game. That's all there is on the island--just the court, water lapping right up to the edge of the blacktop. It's just water all out there. Deep. Then I notice there are fans out in the waves, circling us.

OBSERVER: What are they doing? Swimming?

SUBJECT: They're watching. Riding Jet Skis, lying on floats out there in the waves. Swimming, too, I guess. But a long way out. What do you think that means? I've been asking people.

OBSERVER: Maybe you want a little distance. Or you feel surrounded.

SUBJECT: Yeah. The other dream I've been having is my teeth falling out. But that just means that someone is stabbing me in the back. So I know that one.

ENTRY 2: SUBJECT'S PEER-ASSESSMENT METHODOLOGY

I was taught that you find out who players are just like how you find out about dogs. If you have a litter of dogs and you put them in the dark, put them in a corner, and you shake your keys, whatever dogs come to those keys, them's the ones you want. They're curious. They want to know what's going on. They're ready. They're fighting. The ones who sit in the corner, they're afraid. They don't have the heart. That's how I look at people. You put them in a situation and see how they act. Some of these great stars in the league, some of them are scared to take big shots. Some of them are scared to fail. Some of them don't have the heart. You start seeing it and you start picking at it. Other people--like Earl Boykins, he's a fourth-quarter player. Ben Gordon is a fourth-quarter player. The fourth-quarter player is the one you want. Me, I'm gonna shoot that shot every time. Every time.

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ENTRY 3: OFF-SEASON TRAINING HABITS OBSERVED

The Wizards' strength coach feeds the subject the ball, off both makes and misses, which aren't many. He shoots from beyond the three-point arc, stringing together nine made shots in a row at one point, then twelve. Later, from a full four paces farther back, he makes fourteen in a row. That, it should be noted, is a heave. The subject is expressionless when the ball goes in. The loose upward thrust of his body, the calibrated arc, the soft thwick of the net--it does not seem to please him or affirm anything about what he is doing. But missing, even once, makes him wince. Missing twice makes him tilt his head, as if the world were presenting him with a puzzle, a slight recalibration that needs to be made. When he reaches a thousand shots, he turns, smiling and loose, and fires at every basket in the gym from that one spot--twenty-eight feet, then twenty feet, then fifty and at least sixty and fifty and twenty again. He makes four out of six.

ENTRY 4: SELF-IMPOSED ISOLATING TENDENCIES

OBSERVER'S NOTE: In five seasons in the NBA, first with Golden State and now the Wizards--forty-one road games per year, plus exhibition trips and, more recently, the playoffs--the subject estimates that he has left his hotel room a total of six times, and only in L. A., where he grew up.

I think it came from my first year. I was so depressed that I wasn't playing that I didn't want to go out. I'm gonna stay and do sit-ups or jumping jacks. And I'm not gonna come out. Not till morning. There's nothing out there for me. I don't know those cities. I don't know where to go. I don't have any people. Other guys will be out, the steak house, the clubs, just rollin'. Me, I'm fine. Time is falling off. Sun's coming up. I'm doing more sit-ups than the night before. I'll watch three or four movies. I'll watch infomercials. The last thing I bought was this colon cleanser. I just got talked into it. I'm like, Man, he makes it sound so good.

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ENTRY 5: SELF-PERCEPTION OF OCCUPATIONAL ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITIES

When I go into the ring, I know every team and what those players do. I don't pay attention to the guards. Get those bigs. Okay, this one takes charges, so I have to stop and pull. I've got to trick him. Or, say, Alonzo--he loves to block shots, so I'm going to jump into him every time. I have to think: How many fouls does Shaq have? Two in the first period? Okay, no one else is going to get that next foul on him. Our bigs--they're going to jump away from Shaq. So all right, let me go in there and get hammered. That's okay--I like the contact. Then that's three fouls, and I don't have to worry about him until after halftime. I would run into anything. Once that ball goes up, I don't feel none of that. I'm ready to get dirty. Let's play a little dirt.

ENTRY 6: THE SUBJECT OBSERVED IN OBSESSIVE MODALITY

It is Wednesday, the day after movies are traditionally released on DVD, and the subject piles up purchases at a local video store. He collects with no particular agenda in mind. He's just hungry for more. He grabs the new releases first, two and three at a time, piling them against his chest like a stack of library books. He is not picky. On this day his haul includes The Libertine, The Matador, Basic Instinct 2, three submarine movies, a dance movie, two romances, and a handful of comedies. As the stack grows higher, he slows. How many does he plan to buy today? "I usually stop when I get to here," he says, holding a finger to his chin.

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He doesn't know when he will watch them, or even if he ever will. Back at home, in the supremely carpeted media room of his cozy, overcouched theater, he has a hard drive capable of holding more than ten thousand titles. Ask him and he'll tell you he wants them all. All the movies. Ever.

"I have so much entertainment going on in my house that I don't need to go out," he explains. "I don't need to go to the movies if I own all these movies. I don't need to go out to a game because I've got all these video games. I don't have to leave my house to have a conversation because I just hop online and have fun with my friends, talk trash, and do whatever we're gonna do right there."

ENTRY 7: EARLY FORMATIVE EXPERIENCE (GETTING CLOTHESLINED BY A BENCHWARMER)

The guy who helped my career out, truthfully--it's hard to believe--was Marc Jackson from Philly. Not the guard Mark Jackson. The big Marc Jackson. The year after he signed his contract with Golden State, he wasn't playing, either, so we'd come to the gym, eight o'clock, and we'd play full-court one-on-one. Me, him, and Dean Oliver. We'd play twenty-one, one-on-one, two-on-one, full-court one-on-one. From eight until practice started. Three hours. Every day. Every time we drove past him, he'd clothesline us. He was like, "Well, you're in the NBA now. You're going to feel pain." He just hammered us every day. So I learned how to be tough. And once I started playing, I was like, Okay, I'm used to this already.

ENTRY 8: UNUSUAL SLEEPING RITUALS

SUBJECT [interviewed while playing two-man Halo in his bedroom]: You can't see very good. I'll sit down on the floor if you want.

OBSERVER: No, I can tell you like to play on the bed. I'll stay here.

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SUBJECT: I just started sleeping in this bed after three years. I used to sleep over there.

OBSERVER: Where? On the couch?

SUBJECT: Yeah. I trained myself to sleep on the couch.

OBSERVER: Why would you do that?

SUBJECT: You know.

OBSERVER: Not really.

SUBJECT: I don't like women all up on me, touching me. So I get up and go.

OBSERVER: Yeah?

SUBJECT: Then they get up and go. [Subject points to the video-game screen.] Stay there. Wait for me behind that door.

OBSERVER: What door?

SUBJECT: [shaking his head]: I discovered that women don't like that much.

ENTRY 9: EARLY FORMATIVE EXPERIENCE (GETTING SCHOOLED BY THE GLOVE)

It's my first year, and I'm finally starting to play. I'm getting comfortable. I'm averaging, as a starter, sixteen, six, and six. And then I run up against Gary Payton. First time in my career I'm happy to get subbed out of a game. That's when he was still the Glove, and he's just doing everything, anything. He's posting up our big. He's grabbing and pulling the ball. Any time he gets close to me, I'm picking the ball up. He's just got me screwed up. So he has eighteen points in the first period. And he comes up to me, he's like, "Rookie, you're lucky I'm not an A. I. type of player or I'd have forty on you." And coach subs me out. BRRRRR. [Note: Subject does an excellent imitation of a buzzer.] Woo! I run off the court and I'm like, "Oh, my God. Eighteen points! I'm glad I'm out. All right, Bobby Sura. Go get 'em, tiger." I never said one word to G. P. But now, after that game, I got him every time. I think it's something in my mind about what he did to me that first year. He embarrassed me so bad. As soon as he thinks about sticking me, I go at him. I know he's slower than me, so I have to take advantage of that. That's my mentality: This is your chance.

ENTRY 10: EXPLORATION OF ABERRANT CLUTCH PERFORMANCE

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OBSERVER: In between those free throws against the Cavs, LeBron came over, pressed his hand against your chest, and said something to you. What did he say?

SUBJECT: He said, "If you miss this shot, you know who's gonna hit the game winner."

OBSERVER: What went through your mind?

SUBJECT: I wasn't even thinking about it. Like, I heard him. But I don't miss free throws. That's the thing: I never miss free throws at the end. And this was a big free throw. The first one, I shot it, and I went, like, What? That wasn't me. It reminded me of this movie I saw where a kid is controlling the ball from the stands. All of my balls hit the front or back of the rim--nothing ever to the left or right.

OBSERVER: In the middle of all that, you're thinking about the mechanics?

SUBJECT: Yeah.

ENTRY 11: SUBJECT'S PERCEIVED IMPORTANCE OF CATHARTIC VIOLENCE IN A TEAM SETTING

We have a couple of players who are very aggressive, like Awvee Storey. You know, when you have aggressive people, they have to relieve some of that. And I'm one of those people. I don't care--I wrastle. Wrestling. Hurting. I'll bite, punch him in the side. I'll say, Look, you punch me in the stomach once, I'll punch you in the stomach once. We'll see who falls on the floor first. It's like: No punching in the face. No chest and ribs. We don't hurt each other. I mean, a couple of rug burns here or there. I remember one day, he laid on top of me and was pinching my nose so hard that it bruised. For two days, it was just burgundy. He was calling me Rudolph. Me and him, we can't be in the same room. Our personalities clash because he's a bully and I don't like being bullied by anybody.

ENTRY 12: COMPETITIVE RESPONSE OBSERVED (OFF COURT)

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The subject is playing NBA 2K6 on Xbox 360 in the players' lounge at the Verizon Center before going in for yet another off-season shooting session. He's come an hour before the gym opens, as usual, and in these moments he will take on all comers at Xbox. He won't just beat you. He will beat you by as many points as you want. Just name the amount. He treats it like a golf handicap. For this game, he's giving away two hundred points to his friend John, who has flown in from L. A. for a visit. It's the Cavs versus the Wizards all over again, except this time Gilbert has the Cavs.

He knows every kink of NBA 2K6--and how to exploit it. He has shifted LeBron to guard and put his team in a game-long full-court press. He is playing against his video-game self and doesn't like the way John is using him. "You gotta get me square to the basket," he says as the Game Gilbert misses a shot from twelve feet. "You gotta get two point guards in there."

There's a minute and a half left, and Real Gilbert is up by 191. Then Game Gilbert gets a steal and throws a long pass--only to have LeBron pick it off. "Sorry, Gilbert," says Gilbert. "You can't stop the King."

As the game ticks down, the Cavs and Gilbert--Real Gilbert--are up by 201. John has the ball and is running the clock down for the final shot. At the last second, Antawn Jamison flips in a layup that makes it 331-132. John screams, circling the room, knocking magazines here and there. The man just got beat by 199 points and is ecstatic. Gilbert shakes his head.

ENTRY 13: CONSTRICTED DIETARY HABITS

On the road, I eat hamburgers every day. The team tries to get me to eat differently, but no. Burgers, burgers, burgers. I like burgers. McDonald's burgers. Wendy's burgers. Burger King burgers. There's this one place in Canada--I even look at the schedule to find out when we play there--best burger I've ever tasted. Real soft and sweet. I ate twelve of them in one night.

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ENTRY 14: TRAINING HABITS (NOCTURNAL)

It is 10:15 P.M., and the subject phones the Wizards' strength coach to ask him to open up the Verizon Center. He then sets out from his home, driving the thirty-five minutes through the light nighttime traffic. He does this often enough that it feels routine. But he's not going there now to shoot or dribble or even touch a ball. He wants nothing more than the familiarity of running the stairs in his home arena--the skit-skit-skit of his feet on the cement treads, the bass line of his own breathing, the deep ache of muscles tested once more--until the hours have passed.

He doesn't care what the clock says. He doesn't care what other players are doing just then. He cares only about filling the time. It's night, remember, a while before midnight, a time when most people his age, most people with his sort of money and cars and good looks, are drawn to the expansive and throbbing possibilities of clubs, parties, concerts. Gilbert shows no sign of that pull. He is simply dealing with time. There is so much of it in the NBA. It's the thing that surprised him the most when he came into the league. There's practice at 1:00, there's a game at night, and that's it. Even though it's late, there are so many hours left to fill until he will find sleep on the couch in his bedroom that night.

ENTRY 15: SELF-IMPOSED COMMUNICATION BARRIERS

When I get a new cell phone, first thing I do is turn it off and call from my house phone and leave stupid little messages to myself. Like: "It's me." "It's me." "This is Gilbert." "It's me." "It's Gilbert." I just fill it up, so no one can leave messages. If you don't, you leave for an hour and thirteen people have called. So there are thirteen new messages you have to listen to and it's like, Oh, man. I don't feel like hearing people's stories. Most people love leaving messages that they don't want to tell you in person. So I cut that off.

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ENTRY 16: SELF-MOTIVATIONAL MECHANISMS

The subject steps out of his dressing closet holding a list he keeps there of every player in the 2001 NBA draft who was selected ahead of him. All thirty. He runs his fingers down the page. He has scratched out each player who is no longer in the league. "Hmpff," he says, pausing on a name. "I got to get the pencil out. Utah. Raul Lopez? Ain't seen him much lately."

ENTRY 17: EARLY FORMATIVE EXPERIENCE (FINANCIAL HUMILITY)

I never look at my check. I learned that lesson my first year. I got my first stub, and it said $16,000. And I'm like, "That's what I'm talking about! I'm rich!" And I'm dancing and having fun, and then something told me to look over at Antawn Jamison's stub. It said $360,000. I look back at mine: sixteen. Three hundred and sixty thousand?! That's my whole year right there--in one check! So I asked Bobby Sura, "Man, how much you make?" Bobby Sura said, "Mine says $5 million. I get mine up front." I'm like, Whoa. I never looked again. Not once. Not even tried.

ENTRY 18: ADDITIONAL OBSERVATIONS OF OBSESSIVE BEHAVIOR

The subject has a five-and-a-half-foot-tall safe in his basement full of jerseys of great NBA players past and present. They're all signed, too. Each of them is in a plastic bag, each numbered and cataloged. Tracy McGrady? Got him. Home and away. Hedo Turkoglu? Got him, too. There are so many jerseys packed into this safe that the plastic packages tumble out when he opens it, like a sight gag in a sitcom. There must be a thousand. It is a collection he started only a year ago. Now they come in two, three, five a day.

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The subject harbors plans to build a basketball court made of glass. He doesn't know where he will build it. He doesn't know when. But the plan is to showcase these jerseys behind the glass. There will even be a mirror behind each jersey so that you can see the back of it. When the subject realized that the court floor wouldn't be big enough to hold the burgeoning collection, he decided to make the walls glass, too. And the ceiling. "When I realized I could do the ceiling," he says, "that made me feel good." More than anything, it seems to soothe him to think about building this house of glass, which he imagines wrapping him in some way, buffering him in a museumlike calm.

ENTRY 19: SUBJECT HAS AN IDEA FOR A SHOE COMMERCIAL

You know how I always throw my jersey into the stands after a game? In Washington, they just go crazy for it. So in this commercial, that's what I'm gonna do with my shoes. I've just hit a game winner, and I throw these shoes. Everyone starts to react, and you see everything in slow motion. Everyone's pushing, shoving, doing whatever it takes to try to get to these shoes. People from the 400 level, they're jumping off the ledge, they're missing the pile, hitting nothing but chairs, and you can just see in people's faces like, Ooooh, that hurt. While all this stuff's going on, one of the shoes pops out of the crowd, and a little girl gets it and she takes off. A couple of people see she has it, and they start chasing her, and she's looking back running--and then she gets clotheslined by a kid in a wheelchair. So he picks the shoe up and says--he's gonna have the only line in there--"They said I couldn't get it. Heh. Impossible is nothing." And then he rolls off.

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CONCLUSION:

The subject presents divergent sets of behaviors that suggest traditional pathologies, and their concurrent presence--well, that might make you think he's flat crazy. But there is no acceleration to his madness, no manic upward slope, no crashing depressive spiral. The collections, the isolation, the aggressive tendencies, the endless training--they focus him, shield him from distractions, toughen him up. And while all that may make him a little nutty, it also makes him really, really good.

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